In 2002, Marianne Hicks of Brigantine - bored with her accounts-receivable job and part-time work as a cook, and eager to reinvent herself as an industrial designer - was wooed by a recruiter for the Art Institute of Philadelphia with assurances of job help once she got a degree.
Today, Hicks says, her diploma is about the only thing that she can cling to. Often unemployed since graduating from the for-profit career college in 2007, she's under the gun from collection agencies for more than $90,000 in student loans that she can't repay. She's staying with a brother because she can't afford her own place, and a sister is mad at her because she co-signed one of the delinquent loans.Colleges that profit, students who don't !